Before we left for our first retirement trip to the PopUp Business School at Mr. Money Mustache’s Headquarters in Longmont, I shared that we would be trying to do some travel hacking to save money. I also decided to keep track of our expenses for the first time on a trip! I estimated how much we thought we’d spend during the 16 days and today I’ll share how close those estimates were. I’ll show you where we were frugal and where we set our Mustachian ways aside!

Parking our car at an airport hotel cost $4/day. After adding tax and driver tips, the total was $79.50. Flights on Southwest with our Companion Pass cost $22.40 (taxes/fees) and 35,236 UR points. Car (mini-van) Rental in Denver used 50,215 UR points and gas for the mini-van cost a total of $252.72 (*We drove almost 1700 miles during our time in Colorado!)

Results – We spent $105.62 more than we anticipated. But we really had no idea where we were going to end up traveling when we weren’t in Longmont. We made a huge loop down to Great Sand Dunes National Park the first weekend we were there. And after the PopUp Business School was over, we spent four more days traveling all through Rocky Mountain National Park. We also went to Steamboat Springs before we headed back to Denver.

With all of the cool things we did during our trip, we were fine with spending more to get around the great state of Colorado!

Lodging

Estimate – $450 (mostly tent camping, maybe a small cabin for a few nights, hotels for a night or two)

We loved the tent camping we did in Colorado! And our plan to bring all of our gear in suitcases on Southwest worked fine. We had everything we needed to be (mostly) comfortable. The first four nights in Lyons, CO cost $96 (we ended up having to pay for showers there so it was closer to $25/night not $20.) I just realized that the second week (3 nights) should have been discounted for off-season (from what I read online), but we didn’t get a discount – and that was fine. It was a great camping area! For three nights during Week 2, the cost was $72. The first weekend away from Longmont, we camped at two KOA’s which cost a total of $72.76. Total camping costs – $240.76.

We chose to use an AirBNB in Longmont for Sunday and Monday night (starting Week #2 of PopUp) because we got back into town late on Sunday and had plans to go to the Denver Bronco’s Monday night football game. The cost for the AirBNB was $160.07 for two nights.

We stayed in two hotels after we left Longmont as we headed to Rocky Mountain National Park and Steamboat Springs. It was still very busy in these areas and many hotels were booked. For two nights, it cost us $228.24.

The last two nights in Colorado were spent in a small camping cabin at Elk Creek Campground in Grand Lake, near Rocky Mountain National Park. It was getting down in the 30’s at night and we enjoyed trying out these cabins! They had 3 beds, a small table, and electric heat 😉 They were a great way to camp – but still save some money! The total for two nights was $131.10.

Results – We spent $310.17 more than we estimated! I never thought the night time temperatures would be that different between Longmont and Grand Lake. It makes sense now though! We even saw snow the morning we were headed to Steamboat! We definitely could have tent-camped in those colder temperatures, but we also wanted to try out the camping cabins. The AirBNB was not part of the original plan, but we also didn’t plan on going to the Bronco’s game! We could have camped those nights too, but we were happy to spend the extra money for the convenience (and extra sleep!)

I’ll need to figure out a better way to break this out in future trips. The $497.02 figure was most of what we ate and drank out during the trip. We stopped at a couple of grocery stores and at a big box store to get supplies twice too. The total for grocery/supplies was $200.72 and some of that was food and beverages. I didn’t take the time to break out the totals – so I combined these categories.

Results – We spent $302.26 less than what we estimated in these two areas. This is interesting because I had predicted that food/beverage would be our largest expense! We didn’t need a cooler and we didn’t have any way to cook, so we definitely did well in this category! We kept things simple and we ate out almost every night. We did save a lot by using groceries for breakfast and lunch, rather than going out to eat those meals each day.

*One other IMPORTANT note! We were treated to two nice dinners on our trip too! Our new friend Carol who just started the blog Downsize Your 2080 (focusing on designing a lifestyle around a part-time work schedule) and her friend Sue treated us to dinner in Longmont. And we met up with a PopUp “classmate” and her family in Steamboat Springs where they live. They treated us to a great dinner and some margaritas too! We were SO lucky to have met such nice people! We are looking forward to seeing these folks again in the future and we’ll be the ones to do the treating!

Activities

Estimate – $300

Actual – $600

We were really just guessing what activities might cost. But we were also sure that if we found fun things to do, that cost wasn’t going to prevent us from doing them! I turned 50 this year, we had an anniversary this spring, and my husband had a birthday this summer – and we didn’t do anything “big” to celebrate those important days. We were really busy getting our house ready to be sold and getting both kids ready for college – and we knew our days to travel were coming.

We gave $10 to the band that came to MMM’s HQ the first week we were there. We spent $42 to rent sleds to use at Great Sand Dune National Park. We purchased a one-year National Park’s Pass for $80 (that we can use until 9/2018). We spent $14 on campfire wood and starters. And we took a $50 gondola ride to the top of Steamboat Mountain.

We also spent $404 on Monday Night Football tickets! We had planned on going to a Colorado Rockies baseball game – but the football game was great! Being able to hang out with four new friends (two from the United Kingdom) was so much fun and something we’ll always remember. We got seats near the field so that we could see all of the action and let our UK friends enjoy their first football game! We’ve only been to one other game in the last ten years, so this was definitely a treat for us too!

Result – We spent $300 more than we had guessed! And we’d do the same thing again if we had the chance!

So how did we do overall?

Total Estimate for the Trip – $2000 (avg. $125/day for two of us)

Total for the Trip – $2413.58 (avg. $151/day for two of us)

Result – We spent $413.58 MORE than we estimated over the 16 days (avg $26 more /day for two of us)

I think we did pretty well for estimating and having a pretty “open” schedule outside of the time we spent in Longmont.

Were there areas where we could have been more frugal? Sure. We could have saved some UR points by flying early in the morning and renting a smaller car instead of a minivan. We could have saved on gas by not going on the long trips away from Longmont. We could have skipped the AirBNB and the camping cabins and tent-camped more. We could have skipped the craft beer when we ate out. And we could have made sandwiches instead of eating out a few nights too.

We could have climbed the dunes and skipped sledding down them. We could have paid for a one-day pass instead of the annual National Park Pass. We could have looked at Steamboat Mountain and skipped the Gondola ride and hiking at the top. And we could have watched the Bronco’s game at a bar and not from the 30th row from the field.

But we made the choice to spend money on what made us happy and we’re SO glad we did. When you’re pretty frugal most of the time, it can be hard to spend more freely. We think we found a good balance on this trip and made smart decisions about where to spend and where to be more frugal.

We can definitely see the benefits of estimating and tracking expenses (although I found the tracking to be challenging while we were on the trip.) For our next trip, I will try to estimate the expenses and then I’ll add an extra 15-20% to see if I can get a more accurate total. And I’ll look for some apps to help track things too!

If you didn’t see my two recent posts, check out my Week 1 and Week 2 reviews of PopUp Business School, MMM’s HQ, and what we did during our free time!

How do you decide what to spend money on when you are on vacation? Are you pretty good at estimating expenses or does your budget get busted when you go away? Which categories do you tend to overspend in? If you have any suggestions on how to keep track of expenses while on the road, share away!

Part 1 left off with us leaving Longmont at the end of Week 1 of the PopUp Business School. A blog reader (Carol) had sent me ideas of places we might want to see when we weren’t in Longmont. (And we’d get to meet Carol later in the week!) So we headed five hours south on a route that took us through Boulder, Golden, and Colorado Springs. We tent-camped at a KOA in Pueblo and it was another warm, rain-free night.

We got up and headed 2 hours southwest to Great Sand Dunes National Park. If you haven’t heard of it, click on the link and check it out. It was AMAZING! This park is home to the tallest sand dunes in North America. It took us about 3 hours to wander through the dunes and make our way to the top. It is a physically demanding climb (for most people) and the sand got incredibly hot. (If you plan to go to the top, make sure you wear sunscreen, sneakers/hiking boots with socks, and take plenty of water!) Eye protection is important too because the sand blows around in areas. It was well worth the drive and we hope to go back someday!

Mr. MSD having some fun sledding down those hills!

We returned our sleds and headed to Durango. We drove the Million Dollar Highway through the San Juan National Forest to Ouray before dark. It was incredibly scenic but parts of it were scary too (and there wasn’t even snow!) Single-lane, winding roads through mountain passes will definitely keep your attention! But it was worth every white-knuckle second! We camped in Ouray at another KOA and almost every spot was full! The camp host shared that Ouray is “the off-roading” capital of the world. And there were 4-wheelers in almost every camp site!

Sunday morning’s drive took us north to Aspen and we decided to stop and check it out. We planned to take the gondola to the top to hike, but clouds were rolling in and a $70 ride wasn’t worth it. We missed out on a free gondola ride in Telluride which was about 10 minutes from our campground – and it was sunny in the morning too!

We decided to book an AirBNB* for Sunday & Monday night. The weather was threatening Sunday and we knew we’d be out late Monday night. And we headed to class on Monday morning ready for…

PopUp – Week 2!

We walked in to Pete’s “Headquarters” and everyone was sharing their weekend adventures. Monday’s focus was learning more about how to find customers online. We learned specific ways to use social mediaplatforms like Twitterto search for people to connect with. Alan also explained boosted/promoted posts and when it might make sense to do that with your business. We also talked about trolls & naysayers and Alan gave us some great advice – “If there’s one thing you can remove from your life to make you happier – it’s comparisons. Just be where you are.” Pete also shared some wisdom about “getting in” with influencers and summed it up with “lead with the give – help people” – and “people to people is the answer – connect, make sure your values are aligned.”

Alan & Jack – Are You Ready for Some Football?

And when class finished up Monday, a group of six of us headed to Denver for Monday night football! It wasn’t a very Mustachian night, but it was SO much fun! We’ll never forget taking Alan and Jack from PopUp to their first game! (Simon and Henry had left to go back to the UK to run another PopUp event! These guys are BUSY!) It was a terrific game that came down to the last seconds and the Broncos won!

On Tuesday, Alan taught us more about networking that works. We did group work on how to find the right people to work with and how to make connections. And in the afternoon, we got things done. We worked in small groups to identify our next steps and our friends helped us seek solutions to any problems we were encountering. It was a super productive day!

Wednesday’s class was all about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and how to get our websites noticed. We talked a lot about key words vs. “spammy” words. Alan also gave examples of how voice searches differ from typed searches and how that might affect SEO. We also had a classmate that worked for Google, so she shared all about Google Trends. I had never heard of that before and it is a really cool tool to try out! The day ended with the PopUp Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic and the reminder to test, measure and try something new if it isn’t working!

First Reader Meet-Up!

A bunch of people in class took part in Longmont’s last Bike Night of the year. Longmont has Colorado’s oldest (14 years!) weekly family bike ride! We had different plans for the night! It was my first blog reader meet-up! Two wonderful ladies drove to Longmont to have dinner with us! We had a great conversation and by the time dinner was over, we were chatting like old friends! I gave Carol some advice about her blog and she hit publish this week! She is focusing on building a wonderful and joyful life by downsizing the number of hours you work! Read her first two posts at DownsizeYour2080.com!

We enjoyed coffee back at the Barking Dog Café on our way into class on Thursday! The focus of the day was how to present our ideas, tell our story, and share our “pitch” in ways that connect with our customers. We talked about tone of voice, body language, and the importance of being confident. After all of the activities, I think we were all much better at explaining our businesses! We also spent time in the afternoon learning about being creative with our businesses too. Most of us stayed at the HQ and enjoyed a cook-out and spending time with each other Thursday evening!

After we packed up the tent on Friday morning, we looked at the sandstone cliffs and river at the campground that had been our home for the last two weeks. We loved the tent camping and the weather certainly helped! We headed into Longmont for our last day of class – excited, but a little sad that it was ending too.

The focus of Friday was negotiations and asking for what you want. Alan stressed focusing on the long-game and building strong relationships with people we really want to work with. Pete also talked to us about keystone habits and happiness. He shared what makes him “tick” and how getting the “first hour right” helps the day flow more easily.

I think people spend a long time trying to figure out what makes them tick. Or they just try to use what makes other people tick and it doesn’t work out. We’re working on better defining that for ourselves right now too.

The day ended with Alan sharing 12 great PopUp “Gifts” for us to consider as we moved forward with our businesses. The Gifts included things like “business is about having money, not owing money” and “think big, start small” and my favorite, “the more you give, the more you get”. This is different than traditional advice given to entrepreneurs. But it makes SO much sense after spending two weeks with this team.

And before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to this productive, supportive, and energetic group. And to Alan, Jack, and Pete. It was a fantastic two weeks of learning and of growing our circle of friends. We are still connected by a Facebook group, an email list, and we have a Google Spreadsheet with all of our business ideas. It will be terrific to see what ideas stick and how others take what they learned to develop new business ideas too!

I am hoping to highlight some of these new businesses over the next few months. I think you will love what members of the group are doing!

Fish Creek Falls

But our trip didn’t end there! We still had four days to enjoy, so we headed through Rocky Mountain National Park toward Steamboat Springs. After we left the front range, it was much colder (30’s at night), so we stayed in a hotel Friday and Saturday night. (We’re not that brave – or frugal! There was snow in the high peaks each morning!)

Saturday we got up and did a 5 mile round-trip hike at Fish Creek Falls in Steamboat. The views were spectacular! And later in the day, we had our first PopUp Business Reunion in Steamboat! We had a terrific time hanging out at the upper deck at the Salt & Lime Restaurant with one of our “classmates”, her husband, and their teenage boys.

We spent time with them again on Sunday and we also got in a gondola trip up Steamboat Mountain and we spent a few hours at Strawberry Park Hot Springs! What a beautiful area! (I feel like I’ve said that about everything we saw in Colorado – but every turn was another amazing view!)

Elk Creek Camping Cabin (Grand Lake, CO)

Sunday night we drove back to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and saw elk bugling and a bull moose. We stayed in a “camping cabin” in Elk Country Campground in Grand Lake both nights. The cabins were great! They had small electric heaters which was plenty to keep the space warm. They cost about $65/night – less than half of what we could find hotel rooms for in that area. Grand Lake was beautiful and the leaves in the area were just starting to change colors. We did a few short hikes and went back to see the animals in RMNP one last time. And the elk were bugling like crazy! SO COOL!

We headed back to Denver on Tuesday to catch our flight home. Luckily the plane was delayed an hour and we were able to check out Red Rocks Amphitheater! What a great venue! We definitely want to see a concert there.

Well that about wraps up the details of the trip. We are SO glad that we made the (smart) decision to go! We could have stayed home and worried more about getting our renovation under control and getting moved out of our house. But we decided that this is what retirement is about. The houses could wait. This vacation met all of the habits I wanted to focus on this year – keep moving, eat real food, help others, simplify, keep learning, explore, choose happiness and have fun.

If you have any interest in starting a small business or if the entrepreneurial spirit strikes you down the road, you can check out the PopUp Business School online. My predictions? PopUp will be back to the United States within the year AND PopUP will become a destination learning vacation for people when they discover HOW GOOD these guys are. (And remember – the classes were free to us because PopUp’s model uses sponsors rather than charging students.)

In my next post, I’ll share our expenses and compare them to the predictions I made in the post where I announced we were travel hacking our way to Longmont for our first retirement trip! I’ve never kept track of expenses (and we don’t have budget either!) We’ll see where our frugal habits saved us money and where we spent more money than we thought!

As always, thanks for reading! Is anyone out there interested in starting a small business – or have you started one recently? What about you bloggers – do you consider your blog a business, or is it just a hobby? Would you be interested in attending a two-week PopUp school?

We’ve been back from our trip to Colorado for a week and it took me that long to try to figure out how to share our experience! To keep it from becoming a novel, I decided to break it up into parts. It was definitely a “series” worthy event and a number of people have asked me to share more about it!

Here in Part 1, I’ll share our experiences in Week 1 of the PopUp Business School which was held in the newly opened Mr. Money Mustache Headquarters in Longmont, Colorado. In Parts 2, 3, and 4 – I’ll share our Week 2 experiences, our expenses for the 16-day trip, and how Stashmont will impact my business and future.

For any of you who have ever thought about starting a blog or a small business, this series will hopefully show you that anyone with determination and a little “out-of-the-box” thinking can be a successful entrepreneur! And it doesn’t take a lot of money (it can even be free) or a fancy business plan!

We left upstate NY on Labor Day (9/4) and flew to Denver. It was really hot and hazy when we landed and you couldn’t even tell you were near the mountains. We got our rental mini-van, stopped for supplies, and headed to LaVern Johnson Park in Lyons to find a campsite. This park was totally washed out in floods in 2013 but was re-opened in 2016. It was beautiful – surrounded on three sides by the North St. Vrain River and sandstone cliffs. Our tent site was right next to the creek and it was our home for the first week of the trip.

View from our Tent!

We got up REALLY early on Tuesday, (9/5). At 5:30 a.m. we were ready for a walk because of the time change. It worked out great because we ended up at The Barking Dog Caféfor some great coffee. We visited this café every morning we were in Lyons! (A group of regulars greeted us after the first few days and asked about our trip and what we were learning in Longmont. It was a terrific small town and we even got a few hugs and good wishes on the last day of our trip. Some super friendly folks for sure!)

Then we headed to Longmont (about a 7-mile drive) to head to meet Pete (Mr. Money Mustache) and the PopUp Business School team at the new “MMM Headquarters” (better known as #Stashmont now!) We really didn’t know what to expect. We knew there would be a group of local folks, but how many other people made this trip? We were excited to find out.

We walked in and were greeted by other participants and by Jack from the PopUp team. He had us sign in electronically (and we soon learned that Jack is all things tech/social media for the PopUp team!) The room was filled with seats – we estimated about 60, and they were packed in pretty tight. So we found a spot and soon the room was full. REALLY full. And a few people were sitting on the patio out back facing into the conference room.

Kick-off to Stashmont

There were over 80 people in attendance at the first day of the PopUp Business School.

Alan, Simon, and Henry jumped right in to Day 1 of the PopUp Business School lessons by having us discuss what holds people back from starting businesses and by teaching us 5 Ways to Start a Business for Free. They focused on not starting a business in debt and shared some really easy ways for most people to get started for little or nothing! This is incredibly important because you can try out business ideas without taking on a bunch of debt or using much of your own money! The team also created a YouTube Channel where they share a few minutes about each day. You also get to see the MMM HQ and all of us up close! Here’s the link to #Stashmont – Day 1. The Day # will serve as the link after this 😊

Our assignment for lunch time on the first day was to write down 15 things that excited us. Not one or two. They wanted us to have an abundance mentality and they reminded us that the first or second business idea might not work. But as long as you were excited about what you were working on, one business idea would work if we kept trying. We then took our lists and learned how to decide which idea to start with. This was easy for some people and really hard for others! I loved this part because deciding how to choose closely aligned with the decision-matrix I use too!

I used my blog and decision coaching as my business idea to work on. But I also had two other ideas I was excited about! It was a terrific first day! And we met people from Dallas, Boston, Miami, California, Canada – and a bunch from Longmont and other areas in Colorado. We were right. People had come from all over. And yes, we did meet Pete. Mr. Money Mustache was a very welcoming guy and we felt right at home in his new place.

We went home to the tent after a quick dinner because the energy of the day and the 5:30 am start had wiped us out. It was warm with no rain in sight for days. Perfect camping weather!

Website Wednesday was the theme for Day 2! The PopUp team showed us how to build a website for free on Weebly. I have a WordPress site on the paid host Siteground. If I was to start another site, I would use Weebly for free and then if the business worked out, I would shift it over to a paid host (they shared that the move is pretty seamless most times!) That’s another way to save money when you are trying to see if your business idea will stick!

A fancy website isn’t needed to get customers, but a functional one is!

Bluehost was also one of the sponsors of these two weeks of learning! We got some nice T-shirts and a year of free web hosting from them for attending! I am not going to switch my current site to them at this point, but I have another website I am considering starting and I will definitely use that free year of hosting if I get it off the ground soon! The other two sponsors for the week were Betterment and Treehouse Learning.

The PopUp team taught us how to focus on key parts of our website and they talked about how video is becoming more important than ever to keep people engaged. They also suggested a “call to action” on your site and letting visitors have real clarity as to why your site exists. This was something my site was totally lacking. I thought people would “get it” – but why not just put it out there? I just added some key questions and directions near my blog logo on the home page. It’s not perfect, but it gives people a much better idea of what my site is about and how I can help them!

We drove to Estes Park for dinner after class because it was only about a half hour from the campsite. The views were incredible! Be careful if you get car sick at all though! Focus on the scenery and not your phone while driving (which you should be doing anyway!) Another clear evening with no rain – which was great for all of the Mustachian campers in the group! We weren’t the only people camping (which probably doesn’t surprise you!)

Day 3 didn’t disappoint! Thursday morning featured Greg Ellis of Ellis Bottom Line Bookkeeping.Greg is a friend of Pete’s and his business is across the street from the MMM HQ. He talked about keeping records and addressed some tax situations small businesses encounter. This is definitely an area I want to learn more about. And I have it on my calendar to give Greg a call for a consultation after we move next week! The afternoon focused on marketing, selling and finding customers. And don’t think we just sat in those chairs all day! We were up and engaged with each other – sharing ideas and trying out different ideas all the time. These guys are TOP NOTCH teachers – they don’t just present! (And I know what good teaching looks like!)

We learned things like how to search out customers on Twitter by using key word search terms. Even though I don’t charge for coaching, I reached out to a young woman on Twitter who had tweeted “what job should I take.” She ended up emailing me her dilemma and I gave her some of my resources and offered help. She emailed me back that she had made the decision and that what I shared was incredibly helpful to her! I would never have known to search out “customers” or clients that way! It took very little time and effort too!

Great Music!

By the end of Day 3, we were all pretty comfortable with one another! Pete had arranged for a great indie band to play that night on the patio and we enjoyed a cook-out too. The duo, Ms. Fridrich’s Messy Ann Band, played for about two hours and we enjoyed their great music, drank some Wibby craft beer from Pete’s keg, and chatted with all of our new friends. It was an awesome night!

Friday (Day 4) was the last day of Week 1 of the PopUp Business School. The focus of the day was determining value, pricing and making sales. We talked about how to find the right people to do business with and the importance of asking your customers what they need and want. It’s important to understand and not assume what people are interested in. One really interesting point was the difference between selling the features of something vs. the benefits that come from it! The PopUp team also shared with us who they sell to, how they do it, and what has helped them to become so successful!

I was really interested in the pricing discussion since this is something I have struggled with. I could charge a flat fee, a per-hour fee, or a “per-decision” fee for the coaching work I do. But I don’t want to do that right now either. I’ve coached nine clients in the last year for free (and remember, I was working full-time with 3 side gigs too last year!) I don’t mind helping people but I also don’t want this to cost me money.

I talked to Pete about this for a while and he suggested trying a “donate button” to see if that would work. I loved that idea – and had never thought of something like that. I am going to experiment with it for now. And you can see the PayPal button on the bottom of my home page.

Rocky Mountains. Sand?

If I work with someone and they feel I added value to their decision, they can make a donation if they want. If they can afford it – that’s great, but it won’t limit who I can help! I am also going to look into site sponsors too. I would think one or two “static” ads in the sidebar wouldn’t turn too many people off – especially if they know that I am coaching people for free. Sponsored posts could work too if I could work them in and not have it totally spam my readers. And affiliate links for services like Fiverr (where I got my new logo!) can help a little too.

So that’s a wrap for Week 1 of our Longmont (#Stashmont) PopUp Business School Adventure! We took our tent down Friday morning knowing we were planning a weekend trip away from Longmont. I’ll share our Weekend 1 adventures in the next post! Scorching hot sand, sledding, and one-lane winding mountain roads certainly made for some excitement!

Let me know if you have any questions about what I shared in this first post! The PopUp Business School has a lot of free information online and on their YouTube Channel. They even have a free step-by-step Start-Up Guide! These guys are full of energy and great ideas. I highly recommend you checking out their work! Mr. 1500 was also at PopUp! Here’s a link to his review too!

**6 Week Update (10/22/17) – Still going strong back on Republic Wireless! No issues this time at all. I will keep you updated!**

Back in February, we started an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator)experiment with our new phones. We haven’t used the major cell carriers for the last five years and at one point, all four members of our family were on different MVNO plans! For this experiment, I decided to try Google’s Project Fi and my husband started service with Republic Wireless (RW). Our plan was to track data usage, coverage issues, customer service situations, and the overall cost.

After getting both of our phone numbers ported to our new providers, things were pretty quiet. Both companies had great customer support during the porting process and we had no issues with billing. Our phones pretty much worked as they should and we had coverage almost everywhere we went. We understand that when we use an MVNO, there are some trade-offs for the low prices. A minor service issue or a lack of coverage in an area is to be expected at times.

RW was $8 – $10 cheaper than Fi each month for unlimited talk, text, and 1 GB of data (even though Fi refunds for unused data.) We didn’t get to use Fi’s international features which may really make the extra money worth it. Overall, Republic Wireless was winning us both over and I decided after four months to leave Fi and take advantage of a special deal being offered by RW.

I ordered a SIM card but the next day, my husband’s phone stopped calling out on RW. We did everything we could over the next few days but we were unable to fix the issue. So we dropped his RW service and I never started mine. It was June by this point and I wrote about Ending the Four Month Experiment. I went into a detailed explanation of the technical problem with his phone and with customer service in that post. I shared positives about our experience with RW too. My intent was not to bash, but to inform others about our specific experience.

We ended up moving his service back to Airvoice Wireless and I stayed on Fi. I was disappointed in RW but things happen and we were ready to move forward.

A few weeks later, I received an email from the VP of Member Experiences at RW. He apologized for what had happened with my husband’s phone and for the customer service experience we had. He had reviewed our help tickets and said we were right to “call them out” on the problem. He also asked if I’d be willing to talk about our experience to provide them with more feedback to try to improve their customer experience.

I agreed and spent about 15 minutes chatting with the folks at RW. It was a great conversation. They shared what happened on their end with my husband’s phone and service. It was definitely their problem and they didn’t make excuses. They shared a number of things that they were trying to improve customer service issues and asked my opinions. They also wanted to talk about our overall RW experience to see if there was anything else they could improve on. They were engaging, funny, and appreciative of my time. I felt very good about the conversation and the direction RW was heading in terms of serving their customers.

But with selling our house, renovating our lake house and getting the kids off to college – I wasn’t ready to make another phone change this summer. The folks at RW said that they hoped we’d come back some day – and to be honest, I wasn’t sure if we would or when.

Over the next month, I noticed my “phone experiment” blog posts being viewed numerous times each day. (For non-bloggers, we can see all kinds of cool statistics on the “back” side of the blog!) As more people learn about MNVO’s, they want to read more about what to expect. I did a search of the terms “Project Fi and Republic Wireless” and realized that my two posts were coming up as the 2nd and 3rd hits on page one of a Google search.

I thought back to my conversation with the folks at RW and my husband commented a few times during the summer that using RW and their App was easy and that he wished that issue had never happened. He had been a happy RW customer.

I was respectful to RW in my post that explained our phone problem and I shared positive things about their service, but I kept thinking that people may be avoiding RW after reading what I wrote. By this time, over 1000 people had viewed the posts (just checked and it is almost 2,000 views now). Maybe that wasn’t a big deal, but I decided to reach back out to the folks at RW.

They had contacted me and asked for feedback. And this was before those posts had ranked on a Google search. They could have just ignored the fact we left or used a simple survey about our experience.

If they were able to make some of the important changes they had discussed with me, maybe it was time to save some money and give them another chance. Fi was costing us extra money and our phone on Airvoice cost more too. And it couldn’t be used as a portable hotspot. RW had exactly what we wanted.

The folks at RW responded to my email and shared a number of things they’ve implemented. Here are just some of the recent improvements they shared with me – taken directly from an email:

Knowledgebase – We have changed the platform and the process, which will allow knowledge to be both more current and more accurate.

Ticket wizard – This allows us to get many of the questions answered that are typically asked early on during the interaction. It reduces the number of times our members (customers) have to go back and forth with us during an interaction.

New and improved forums – Our Community has a new platform and it allows for better peer-to-peer interactions.

New phones! We have kept up our promise and continued to roll out new phones.

We have launched our Anywhere product, which allows our members to text both on the phone and on other devices. This has been very well received by our members and there has been much excitement around it.

We have an entire re-design of our website, which I encourage you to check out here.

That’s a pretty impressive list! They said that they are hopeful that these changes will improve the customer experience and that they are continuing to innovate and learn. They also said that there are many changes to come.

So we decided to take another chance and we BOTH switched to Republic Wireless in the last two weeks. Porting was very easy and we had updates throughout the process. I had one question and found an on-line chat service at RW too. The question was answered within a minute! I know that may not always be the case, but it was certainly a great way to start out our experience back with RW.

And our bill for the month is now less than $50 for the two of us (unlimited talk, text and 1 GB of data each) and last month our bill was about $64 for the same level of service.

Maybe you don’t think that $14 a month is worth it for all the hassle of changing providers (even though changing is actually very easy), but that wasn’t the only thing that mattered to us.

Seeking feedback is incredibly important too. And it’s not just about Republic Wireless or any other business who wants you as a customer. We should all seek feedback about things we can improve on. It’s not easy to open up yourself to criticism or to hear about your areas of weakness. But those are the areas where you can also experience the most growth.

I could have written a very negative review of RW, but we chose to be honest. We did have a challenging issue, but we also had a very good experience most of the time we were with them. Highlighting just the negative in a review doesn’t help others make a smart decision.

We’ve had a great couple of weeks back with RW (and I used my phone as a hotspot for my laptop a few times already too!) We’ll need that a lot when we head to Colorado to camp and to hang out at Mr. Money Mustache’s Headquarters for the Pop-Up Business School conference next week! And we’ll also need it when we move out of our house next month. Our lake house won’t be ready and we won’t have wi-fi available for at least a few months. More on that soon!

If you want to give RW a look, here is my affiliate link. It doesn’t cost you any extra, but it helps support this site. I only include links to sites where I’ll spend my money too.

What are your thoughts on giving RW a second chance? Who do you use for your phone service and are you happy? I love that we can shop for cell service so easily now and that we won’t lose our phone numbers! If you haven’t given a thought to changing carriers – you definitely should! It looks confusing at first, but there are MVNO’s that fit almost everyone’s needs. Take a look!

It’s a “we just got back from being on the road again” edition of the Saturday Share Day! On Monday, my daughter found out that she had a graduate school interview in West Virginia on Friday! She could have done a Skype interview, but we decided we wanted to see the campus again – and that showing up might really matter.

We can’t be sure yet, but she thinks the interview went well – and they were impressed with her commitment to come back to campus (a 12 hour round-trip drive). Our hope is that she will get accepted and get some funding too! Two interviews in two states in two weeks…but she should know where the next two years of her life will be spent soon! We’re also waiting on my son’s acceptances to undergraduate colleges and the financial aid packages too!

You can see how we’ll use the decision-matrix to make the final college decisions. I will update this (and add West Virginia) in the next few weeks – in time for the big decisions! A few week’s are left on this wild ride, so we’ll just keep hanging on…

I’m still working full-time at my “not so temporary” job as a school administrator. My colleague who has been out on maternity leave for 3 months is supposed to return next week – and we can’t wait! We’ve been covering for her with no other support and it has been a real challenge. My side gigs (online teaching & our rental business) also ramped up this week! They enrolled over 40 students in one of my online courses. Lot’s of meet and greet emails and communication with schools – which tripled the hours I normally put in for this job.

And we had a tenant ask to get out of her lease 6 months early because she inherited a house. We could have fought her on it, but that doesn’t help anyone. It was a few hours of work to place ads, respond to emails and set up showings. We think we are set with a new tenant now though – at $25 more per month. A win-win is worth it, so we always strive for that.

I wasn’t able to write any of my own posts this week because of how busy I have been! I strive to put first things first and writing didn’t make it into the busy schedule. But I did read some great blog posts this week and have a few to share. I’m still working those habits and sharing helps others! (And for those of you who’ve read or done any work with Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – yes, we studied this in my Educational Leadership coursework. It definitely applies to many areas of life – not just work!)

I’ll be back next week to share the rush we felt after we made the decision to start cleaning out one room in our house. Simplifying is helping us smile (and see $$$) – all the way to the bank!

Enjoy!

Brian and his wife are sending twins off to college in the fall. Check out his post on the cost of seniors. You millennial readers might decide to start banking more money for your kids after reading his post!

I’m sending Mr. MSD over to check out Amanda’s meal planning post from this week! He’s taken over all of the cooking at home since I’ve been buried with work. We’re working on efficiency and simplifying meal planning right now. Fewer meal decisions saves time and energy for the big life decisions we’ll be making the next few months!

Apathy Ends wrote a great post on Math vs. Emotions in financial decision making. (Yea, he had me with just the title on that one!) If you have to make financial decisions with a spouse or partner (or even with your kids), check out the process AE uses to help make those tough calls.

I’ve written about our Florida vacation condo and our plan to snowbird in the near future. Financial Slacker found an awesome mountain vacation home that he wanted and could afford – but he didn’t buy it! He credits that decision to starting his blog and writing about personal finance. An interesting read for sure!

I think Sam would agree about the benefits of writing a blog! Check out his post from this week (and all the comments) – Why Blogging is the Best Business in the World. I read Financial Samurai because of the depth Sam goes into in each post (and his humor too!) Check out the follow-up post about the Dunning-Kruger effect and delusion too. (And congrats to Sam – who just started coaching and lead his tennis team to a great victory last week! Does it surprise you that Sam’s players are winners already? Probably not!)

My favorite post of the week was Physician on Fire’s post – She Chose Me. If you haven’t read it, you should. I wouldn’t have it any other way either. And as I was getting ready to post this share-out today, PoF shared the news of his collaboration with the White Coat Investor. Covey’s Habit 6 – Synergy at its finest! They have this African Proverb figured out…

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Note: Ideas and opinions on MakeSmarterDecisions.com are simply the results of my own experiences, and they are not intended to advise or offend. MakeSmarterDecisions.com should be viewed and shared for educational and entertainment purposes only. My posts are based on my personal experiences, and all readers should consider consulting a professional or specialist in a given area (financial, retirement, real estate, etc.) before making any decisions.
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